| This well known 50 elephant picture appeared in 1933, the Ringling's 50th Anniversary 1884-'33. The only problem was that the show only carried 41 elephants at the time so Roland Butler gets credit for increasing the herd. |
Monday, February 11, 2008
Assorted Ringling pictures #12
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
28 comments:
Is this what they called a "John Robinson lay-out?"
Buckles,
I would call it "what else is new." I can't stress enough to anyone over 50, the importance of a good press department. If it is a great dept. they can really fix the facts right. Going back to the good old day's for a moment. They didn't need to shuffle elephant's around when they photographed the Carson and Barnes herd in the late 70's.
What in God's name are you talking about?
Buckles: He thought by "lay-out" you were referring to the photo paste-up.
Yes I think a John Robinson is when the menagerie and the big top are in shot-gun order like this.
Buckles,
Sorry, I guess I misunderstood what "a John Robinson lay-out is." What is it? And was Butler not a good PR agent? Than't what I have alway's heard.
Wadee Burck
Ole Whitey,
Thank's. That's is what I thought. I think I have heard the term "John Robinson" used in the past. What does it mean? I thought it had something to do with a tear down, and a quick exit from town.
Wade Burck
Ole Whitey,
Shotgun? Does that mean the lot was laid out with the top's end to end, like a shotgun house?
Wade Burck
Another clue that the photo is faked is that the banner line in the bakcground is part solid and part canvas banners. RBBB went to all solid fold-out banner line arond 1929.
WG:
A John Robinson performance is one that is cut to the bone, supposedly for a quick tear-down and exit from town; a John Robinson lot or lay-out is end-to-end or "shotgun."
Actually both terms have sort of lapsed and are only used by folks who live in the past.
When I was a billposter, once in a while some local would ask, "Ya got any Annie Oakleys?" and I'd think, "This guy's been reading too many old books."
i always thought a john robinson was a cut-to-the-bone performance due primarily to weather but also other problems. (for example, beatty cole did a john robinson here in 1966 because of racial problems that seemed to be taking over the lot in a very, very bad part of town.)
wade -- in the good old days, the press agents were among the most important people a show hired because the right press agent could be a big help filling the tent. even in the irvin feld days, he would hire top press people to help local promters, and it worked. nini finkelsetein could get any editor around to eat out of her hand. dexter fellows and roland butler were before my time. when i think top press agents, i think frank braden. and floyd king, whom i saw charm the front page out of a notoriously anti-circus paper in 1964. the fake photos have not been needed for a long time; a good press agent can take what you've got and make it sound like it's the greatest in the world. a good press agent could make editors belive the cureent k and nicole shows truly are the grestest shows on eath, even after they've seen them. i will always believe that a key reasons circuses don't do the kind of business now that they did in the past was that in the phone era, they decided there was no need for press agents or billposters -- at least not the kind that we once had. so the jobs dried up, the veterans died or went to other jobs. there are still a few but to the best of my knowledge, they simply have not had the training to measure up to the past.
today the shows say "we can't find any" and then "we can't afford them." (braden and his contemporaries were paid 450.00 a week on beatty cole in the early 1960s, which was a lot of money back then. even in 1961, frank orman was afraid once the ones they were too old to go on the road, they wouldn't be able to find competent replacements) one of the )
case in point about press agents. cirque du soleil was in norfolk this past fall. strong, aggressive press department. about four times the press ringling usually gets here with a local press person who didn't undertsand press or circuses 30 years ago and understands even less now.
time to get off my soap box and let the monte carlo saga return.
Bill Powell might add to this as he told me the story last fall but Chappie Fox, when he became an advance PR person for RBBB after the big plans for Circus World dried up, was able to get great publicity out of the knowledge he had of the circus. He was a natural born promoter--look how he grew CWM in the 1960s.
Dick Flint
Baltimore
Ole Whitey,
Thank's. That's what I was trying to reference originally, when I thought the comment was to a "tricked up photo". Thing's not being what they seem, and getting out of Dodge quick.
Richard Reynolds,
There was a "heated" debate about 8 months ago on Sideshow World.com over canvas or plywood banner's. When the smoke cleared I came to the conclusion that you were a low rent show if you used plywood. But I may have misinterrpreted. I was only there because my good friend, Curator Jim Zyjick ask me for back up as he was getting shelled. Good friend, I wonder where he has been lately?
Henry Edgar,
Nini Finkelstein one in a million. The greated press team I have ever seen, has been discussed with the passing of their great Leader Allen Bloom. And like I have said in the past Henry, "charm, makes it sound like it's the greatest in the world."
Wade Burck
There’s no doubt that good press still helps in selling any show. Like everything else today, cost considerations are a major factor. I dare say that “press relations” on a lot of shows means a single mail-out and a couple faxes. That’s not all bad, but it doesn’t work in every town. It’s worth remembering that part of the reason that an older generation of press agents were so successful is because the shows they worked for spent heavily on advertising. An unspoken quid pro quo existed. Today newspaper buys have been supplanted by television and radio buys. Shows can still do pretty well booking a spokesperson on a performer onto morning radio, and morning television where it exists, but television news tends to air circus stories on the day of the show. Not a lot of benefit.
As newspapers see staffing cuts more and more publications rely on wire copy and run less and less local news. “The circus comes to town,” isn’t the big story that it once was. Good press in advance of the show means spoon feeding an outlet compelling human interest stories. Feld and Cirque are still pretty good at that. On other shows much depends on who can write a good pitch “in-house.” Personally I think the best “play” these days comes from weekly papers where space is less of an issue and a good circus story will likely rate the cover. But selling that kind of story means getting a reporter out to the show literally two weeks before visiting a community. The weeklies are on tight budgets, so pitching anything that requires travel means starting six months in advance. Certainly it can be done, but few smaller shows can keep somebody on payroll full-time and year-round doing that.
On the plus side, with dish internet, fax over internet, blogs, wifi phones, and free video streaming on youtube etc. it’s theoretically possible to run a pretty sophisticated press operation from any show’s road office. So maybe efforts will improve.
(Plus, with PhotoShop anybody can have 100 elephants!)
henry edgar,
I was train by one of the old veteran of billposting. But like you said shows of today will not pay a person that know the old way of billposting. RBBB is one of them.
D. Powell
ben - i understand what you're saying. i haven't worked for a daily newspaper in about 12-15 years, but up until the day i left, a visit from someone who knew what they were doing was worth it's weight in gold, armed with a few GOOD well-written press releases - not blanks with the dates, etc penciled in crayon. so much of today's news is via computer that i think editors, now as well as then, would enjoy visiting somebody who knows what they are doing. that's the key phrase -knows what they are doing with solid press and journalistic and circus experience. you can't be effective without all three. a couple months of placing discount tickets at the local dairy queen and a release sent in by an anonymous somebody in god knows where who might be a great circus person but knows nothing about newspapers will not work. up until the mid '60s, you HAD to have all 3 to get placed on a major show. at that time, even ringling understood it. now they don't. the tents shows see dropping a press agent as an easy way to chop budget just like so many think of chopping the elephants or cats as a way to save money. just think what a tent show could do with a menagerie including a giraffe, a full-sized hippo and a rhino. the press could have a field day. i know what i was once able to do with nothing but "the world's largest hippopotamus." i think the right people could still get press and could still bring people in.
henry edgar,
What kind of press could you get with a "SuperStar?"
Wade G. Burck
Henry, I don't disagree. There are dozens of compelling stories on any show, unfortunately the one that gets pitched by fax is "The Circus Is Coming To Town." (Or maybe "Guess the Weight of Our Elephants.") Frankly it isn't always a bad thing when PeTA places a story, because then the show, any show gets to counter and pitch beyond the AR angle. Last summer every circus had a front page second section story on immigration and nobody pitched it. There isn't a daily that wouldn't have jumped at being given a piece on legal temporary workers, and you could write that without referencing the circuses they worked for. A little creativity is almost as good as a CDL.
wade asked what kind of press can you get with a superstar?
at the risk of creating another furor, i'd have to say the press agent and the press create the superstar, not the other way around. the right combination can get magazine covers, tv specials, big newspaper layouts, talk shows, almost everything the hollywood superstars get.
you have to have the right performer and the right press agent. is tom cruise the best actor in hollywood? by no means. is he a huge superstar? Definitely.
i think hollywood press agents played as big a part in creating clyde beatty superstar as the circus press -- and you also had an awesome performer, loads of showmanship, loads of charisma,and an act that was a true "oh, Wow!" beatty, more than anyone else, was a huge superstar. in his heyday, everybody in the country knew who he was.
of the recent superstars, and here's where i will catch hell, the difference in GGW and any of several others was the work of jack ryan and jerry digney and lee solters' crew, with a big help from irvin feld. not to downplay ggw, he was a great performer, but without jack, jerry and the solters staff, he'd just be known as 'that blond guy with the tigers."
if elvin bale or tito gaona or charley baumann or buckles or herriott or jeannette williams or rudi and sue lenz or graham chipperfield or wade burck or the stephenson family had had the kind of push ggw had by the show press staff, any of these could have been equally as big as ggw or bello.
(on the other side, all the press in the world countn't make larible a superstar or even a funny clown)
having spent many years with newspapers and four years of circus with some first rate mentors, i'm sure the right press agent, with the right act, could create another superstar. it's not all about press but a lot of it is.
i just realized that somehow i left out an obvious contender in listing acts that could have achieved the same superstar level of ggw and bello nock: the triple-threat super star power of benny williams, barbara woodcock and anna may. this act begged for the extra push -- benny and barbara were loaded with charisma and could certainly have made it to name above title level with the right press push.
Not sure you could create a superstar around an animal act anymore. Even if activists are a very small minority, trainers are a harder media sell. Maybe an equestrian. GGW's status owed a lot to repeated appearances on Johnny Carson. Fair to say even now some performers no matter how talented or good looking aren't telegenic enough or lack the language skills. Superstars for better or worse have to appear to stand alone, at least in circus you can't pluck somebody out of a group act, unless they also perform solo. And as much as anything else, the would-be star has to sign on for the star treatment and put up with a lot in the years it takes to sell that persona. With several circus based reality TV programs going into production it'll be interesting to see whether another star emerges, deserved or not.
Henry, with respect, (and also fear at losing the SuperStar tag)
Ben Trumble has raised some very good point's. First and formost, being a "single o". In 1984, as animal right's was getting a full head of steam, Irvin Feld stated to me one day, "It is going to be very hard to make the devil, into a hero someday." I think we have seen an attempt at making the devil into a hero, using the "cute and charming" format with the arrival of the Tiger Whisperer. When that didn't work, "I know let's use clown's", which has proven to be a very poor idea. To the current, "I know, let's make the Producer the star." Henry and Ben, back in the day's of Elvis, would you have bought a ticket to see him, or a ticket to see Col. Parker?"
Ben's greatest point was what they have to put up with. Every body moan's and whine's about "politics" on GSOE(yes, they are the only ones with the power to create a superstar) and after 8 years around the Great GGW, I can tell you that he had the greatest pile of "politics", but like the President he was a skilled "Politician." And other's arn't or weren't.
Wade Burck
Already Historians have starting referring to the likes of us as "animal trainers of note during the Gunther Gebel Williams Era!"
Buckles,
You got an astrick by your name. What's the problem? I'm proud of mine. Prouder still, when I heard people refer to Capt. Woodcock, and Col. Herriott, and myself, as Gunther and Gebel and Williams. How about that Sgt. rank. Have you heard anything?
Wade Burck
P.S. A noted trainer offered this sage counsel one afternoon. "we have everything trained for him, so I guess they don't need us anymore." Do you know who that was?
When some Shriner would take me to a tv or radio interview at the station it was OK who are you and what are the showtimes.
When I went as a trainer, etc. from Ringling, it was here is the sitting room, The host would be very polite and ask interesting questions and they would treat you right. They figured that if you were a principal with Ringling you were somebody that was very good at what they do. Quite a difference and naturally it made you feel good.
I would suggest a John Robinson menagerie would mean that it would be sidewalled that day. No tent.
henry edgar,
This thread paralles(sp) Monte Carlo, closer then you may imagine, so enjoy. Again with respect,(that superstar tag you suggested, first and formost on my mind), as you insist on whacking "The Boss", now and again, I might remind you that the Feld machine attempted to make an aerial superstar in ths mid 70's, providing him with every contraption know to man, in addition to 6 or 7 turns in the show like GGW. It failed after a couple of season's remember, and the GGW mystic continued. Three important ingredients in the making of a Superstar are,
1. There can not be 2 in the same family. Wanting a "piece of the spotlight", will stop superstardom dead in it's tracks. (Sigrid deserves sainthood statis, trust me)
2. The superstar has to be 1000% for the company, which will make the company 1000% for them. So dummy up about the emperor's clothes, and tell him they are beautiful, respect be dammed, there's your politic's, Ben
3. Doing more, then anybody else at the time. What animal trainer at the time, and since was doing tigers, leopards, horses, elephant, teeterboards, etc. etc all in the same day. Charlie Baumann was one of the greatest, but what's the chance he could do a backflip to an elephant's back. I'd say slip, to not a chance. Clyde had cats, Buckles had elephants and a leopard, and no offense Capt., somebody else doing the acrobatics. I had tigers, and elephants, as did Lou Regan, and others. The Col. had horses, elephants, and exotics. Baumann, Holtzmeir, etc. horses and cat's.
Baucher had polar bears. Anthony, Hartman, McMillian, Gold, Campolongo, Dean, etc. etc. had only cats. Barrada's had cat's, chimp's, bear's, elephants but there is that troupe/act deal Ben pointed out. Plus traditionally it has been hard to excite the public, with the fearless concept, important for an animal superstar, of bear's and chimps, no disrespect to those great trainers.
Name me one, just one, Henry who did it with almost every animal available at the time, plus threw in acrobat for good measure. Exotic name, exotic look, mythical country, etc. etc. Kinda like a troup, rolled into "one", who talk's kinda sexy. Taking nothing away from the best marketing team of the decade, a Baboon could have made that a "Superstar." And I for one, am forever thankful I got to see it. Thank you Gunther, Irvin, and the Bloom team.
Wade Burck
Col.
You are dead on about how the press treated you, and how you felt. Different then Monte Carlo and Ringling now (just stirring you back for the white tiger debacle) back then we were all proud, because we knew we deserved to be there, because it was truly "The Greatest Show on Earth." I felt that immense pride in 1984, but it did not feel it by 1991 on my return to "The well at least it's bigger then anybody else, and has a great route Show on Earth."
I was proud to be asked to speak at a major metropolitan zoo in 1992, at their Friends of the Zoo annual banquet, as a "suprise" bonus to kick up ticket sales and membership. Two month's in advance of the event the board hung paper all over the zoo, and in their monthly publication. "Special guest appearance by the Greatest Tiger Trainer in the world,
from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Greatest Show on Earth!!!" On the night of the greatly anticipated arrival I stepped to the podium and looked out at 380 confused and bewildered face's. A hand shot up, and I acknowledged the individual. She stood up and said, "where is Gunther Gebel Williams?"
That will deflate you, knock you on your ass, and bring you back to reality quicker then anything, Col.
Wade Burck
wade -- you know a great deal about the process of making a superstar, and you're right that there are people that even col. parker couldn't have booked on a pta tour. that said, most of my life i have worked with superstars in every media, from elvis, bob hope and lucille ball on down. i've also worked with many superstar managers and discussed many of the complicated intricacies. one of the greatest superstar creations was fabian, who was created by bob marcucci, as well as farrah fawcett created by jay bernstein.
we will obviously never agree on ggw, whom i respect as a performer and a star but don't feel ever came close to walking on water. i'm very familiar with the situation you are talking about with the aerialist and once had a meeting with allen bloom about it. i still feel very strongly that this effort was not handled as well as it could have been, with all due respect to the people involved. i will die believing this could have happened.
but circuses have never been about superstars. circus is a team efort as i have often been reminded by the greatest circus men i have ever known. (and to see the best of the time, look at a program for the blue unit the year buckles was there. What an all-star line-up!)i know what i believe in my heart but never had the money to put up or shut up.
this is not as open and shut as the tacky politics of monte carlo that i naively didn't realize existed a few weeks ago because i was away from this business for so long. i may get flack for saying it but creating a superstar is about as simple as catching a quad or taking an animal out of a jungle and teaching it to do spectacular tricks. it's much, much harder than it looks and only a very few people can do it.
Post a Comment